Bishop Bill’s journey from an idyllic Indiana childhood to the priesthood and beyond

South Bend, Ind. is an idyllic, mid-size city town of gently undulating hills, with homes and businesses nestled beneath canopies of oak, sycamore and tulip trees that shed colorful leaves in the fall and stand tall against the wind and snow during the winter. Built along the curve of the St. Joseph River and five miles from the Michigan border, the city was originally settled in the mid-1800s by Eastern European immigrants, mostly Polish and Hungarian. Through the years, South Bend’s claim to fame has been the Studebaker automobile company, the South Bend Cubs and being a next-door-neighbor to the University of Notre Dame. Now, it has another distinction: It is the town where Bishop William Albert Wack, CSC, ninth child and seventh son of Jim and Alice, was born and raised.

Terri Sergio, the oldest of the 10 Wack children and a retired nurse living in Michigan, clearly remembers when her little brother was born. His first trip, she says, was to church.

“Mom didn’t take anyone anywhere until they were baptized. Sometimes, mom’s first trip out of the house would be for the baptism,” says Terri, who, along with her sister Mary, “were like second mothers” to their younger brothers. “I stood in for Bill’s godmother at his baptism because she couldn’t get there,” says Terri.

The Wack family, which included eight boys and two girls, moved in 1968 to a four-bedroom ranch home on a cul-de-sac in a quiet, woodsy neighborhood. The boys shared one very large bedroom with a spacious walk-in closet, and slept in four bunkbeds.

“We had space in the back to play, with monkey bars to climb on, and gardens with lots of roses, and a wooded lot behind the house with trees all over,” says Terri.

William, affectionately known as “Bill,” grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s. It was an era of national political unrest marked by protests of the Vietnam War and civil rights marches around the country. Yet, somehow, sleepy South Bend remained an island of calm in the midst of such storms, providing the backdrop of a delightful childhood for Bill and his seven brothers and two sisters.

“We reminisce about being little,” says Mike Wack, an engineer in Indiana and the fifth Wack child. “We would eat breakfast and go outside and our mother would call us all in for lunch, and then we would go outside again. Mother would call us inside for supper, and then we would go outside again.”

The boys shared a few Schwinn bikes and rode them everywhere. Not far from the Wack house was Hank’s Friendly Supermarket on U.S. 31 and Darden, where many families bought their groceries.

“Mom would give us a list and we would come back with many loaves of bread, many gallons of milk and lots of pasta,” says Dave Wack, the sixth child who now works as an emergency services supervisor in South Bend. “We would ride our bikes over and back, with several bags of food dangling off the handle bars.”

Around the corner from Hank’s there was Bonnie Doon’s, a drive-in ice cream parlor serving the best milkshakes in town.

“We earned an allowance, which we would usually put away to go towards something bigger,” says Dave. “But if we wanted a shake, we would do odd jobs around the neighborhood.”

Not to be outdone by Bonnie Doon’s, the patriarch of the family, Jim Wack, would serve up delicious root beer floats for everyone to enjoy on the Sunday night before Labor Day. It was a treat because the 10 Wack children would be allowed to stay up late with Mom and Dad, playing cards, Scrabble or Monopoly. They led a frugal and simple lifestyle, thanks to a highly organized routine and an unwavering schedule set by their parents.

“My mom, I don’t know how she did it, but as she raised each child, they were put into the schedule and when it was nap time, it was nap time. Lunch and dinner were the same time every day, and every day had a scheduled list of chores,” says Terri.

Stephen Wack, an accountant who lives in South Bend and is the fourth child, remembers the morning routine before school.

“My mother had us older kids make and freeze the sandwiches for the week’s lunch bags on Sunday nights. In the morning, she would make up the lunches by grabbing a freezer sandwich and two cookies. The older ones got one-and-a-half sandwiches, the younger ones got one sandwich. That was over 60 sandwiches every week,” says Stephen.

The night chores fell to father, who was in charge of bedtimes. On Friday and Saturday nights, the children were allowed to stay up an extra half an hour past normal bedtimes. Because Bill was afraid that crickets might jump into his bed, he was given the privilege of sleeping downstairs on the couch — but just once.

As he got older, Bill joined his brothers in the role of altar server at the family’s parish, Christ the King, which was within walking distance of their house.

“It was a great way to be around the priests and see a bit more of their life,” says Stephen.

On weekends and some evenings, all eight Wack boys earned a dollar an hour working at the rectory answering the phone and the door. Working at the rectory with Bill is a fond memory for Rev. Neil Wack, CSC, the 10th child, who now serves as director of vocations for the Congregation of Holy Cross, working at Moreau Seminary on the campus of Notre Dame.

“We were so small that we had to drag a chair over to the door to look through the peephole when the bell rang,” he says.

Once, the two youngest Wack brothers, Bill and Neil, decided to break the monotony at the rectory by tossing eggs to each another.

“They had these long hallways, and one day we decided to have an egg toss. We tried to clean it up and failed miserably,” chuckles Father Neil.

Except for eating cookies between meals and writing his name on the ceiling of his school classroom, everyone agrees that Bill rarely got into trouble. Even as a child, he had a sunny disposition and an easy-going nature that made him well-liked by everyone.

In eighth grade, Bill ran a campaign for class president on the promise of getting a soft drink and candy machine for the students.

“The slogan was ‘Walk with Wack — don’t run with the opponent,’” says Father Neil. “This kind of describes Bill. He has a steady approach of walking in faith and walking with the people.” Although Bill won the election, “they never got the pop and candy machine,” says Father Neil.

However, being class president wasn’t Bill’s highest aspiration. According to his mother, Alice, her son wanted to be a policeman or a doctor when he grew up. It wasn’t until his freshman year in high school that Bill realized that he had a call to the priesthood.

South Bend is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which established St. Mary’s College and Holy Cross College, as well as the University of Notre Dame in nearby Notre Dame. Father Neil remembers when he and Bill rode their bikes together to talk with the vocations director about the priesthood.

“He was a freshman or sophomore in high school when he felt the call. I was in seventh or eighth grade at the time. He wanted to check out Holy Cross Brothers,” says Father Neil, who recalls sitting in the vocations office while Bill talked with Father Andre. When asked if he wanted to become a priest, too, Neil adamantly replied, “No!”

After high school, Bill stayed near South Bend, earning a degree in government and international relations from Notre Dame in 1989, followed by formation in the college seminary with the Congregation of Holy Cross. He received a master’s of divinity degree at Notre Dame in 1993, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1994. It wasn’t until many years later that Father Neil followed in his brother’s footsteps.

“After I finished college, I visited Bill in Colorado, and saw the joy he had in his life,” says Father Neil. “I expected him to be kind of miserable. I wondered, ‘How does he have this kind of joy?’ That’s what drew me towards the idea of looking into the priesthood. Without him, there is very little chance that I would be a priest. I try to live up to his priesthood and his joy. That’s what I want to be.”

As the ninth of 10 children growing up in a small city where most kids played outside and rode their bikes after school, Bill could be described as having had an average and happy childhood. Nobody in his family seemed to see the “writing on the wall” that he would one day become a priest who would later become a bishop.

So, what was it that inspired Bill to enter the religious life? Perhaps it was Jim and Alice’s dedication to bringing the family together nightly to say the rosary around the sofa in the living room. Maybe it was the faithfulness of Bill’s dad, Jim, to take the rosary out of his pocket and pray with his patients by their hospital beds, or the example he set each night as he knelt by his own bed and prayed for his family and others. Maybe it was because of the time Bill spent getting to know the priests and deacons at the rectory, or serving as an altar boy for weddings, funerals and holy days.

Though much has changed in South Bend since the Wack family moved into their split-level house north of the city, not much has changed for Jim and Alice, who still live in the same spot and attend the same parish. And though Bill shot up from a 5’ 1” teenager to a 6’ 1” adult, not much has changed in the personality of the seventh Wack boy. One word that often comes up in conversation with his siblings is “enthusiastic.”

“I’ve watched him over the years and he has kept that enthusiasm,” says Mike. “A lot of times, some priests get less energetic, but Bill has gotten even more enthusiastic.”

Terri describes her brother as energetic. “He seems like an energizer bunny, always up for anything.”

Dave likes the word “radiant” to describe the younger Wack. “He radiates happiness and he’s so excited about his new role and meeting everyone. You can see it in his face,” Dave explains.

For Father Neil, whose own journey to the religious life was inspired by Bill, the one word that best describes his brother is “hopefulness.”

“I think he sees what is, and doesn’t have a false hope about things, but sees the potential and the good and the Lord in people and in situations that others may write off. The diocese may experience difficult things. You don’t hide from situations like that, but you ask, ‘where is God in this?’ With hope you always see and expect God in the darkest moments.”

Bishop Bill has truly traveled far, going from the dark, snowy days of Indiana winters to the southern paradise of snow-white beaches and emerald waters of Florida; from sharing a room with seven brothers to becoming a Holy Cross father and serving the poor and hungry at a soup kitchen in Andre House; from being an altar server for his small home parish in South Bend to being pastor of thousands at St. Ignatius Martyr in Austin, Texas.

Now, the ninth child and seventh son of Jim and Alice Wack has been ordained and installed as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee.

He is a servant-bishop, a priest to the priests and a friend of the people: Bishop William A. Wack, CSC.